I know its literally rocket science and a lot of very complex systems need to work together, but shouldnt we be able to iterate on a working formular?
In: Engineering
A good thing to keep in mind about rockets is that they’re mostly balloons filled with two things that want to explode. Their engines mix those two things to create a directed explosion that gets them into space. So, when something goes wrong with them, especially with anything close to or relating to their fuel tanks, an explosion is to be expected.
As to why we don’t do the same thing every time to prevent problems; we usually try to do exactly that. What happens though is that conditions are not the exact same with every launch. The two times we lost shuttles, the tragedies didn’t occur because anything different was done. Challenger exploded due to a leak that was caused by it being too cold outside. Columbia didn’t survive reentry because a piece of foam fell during launch and damaged its heat shielding. Nothing special was done by NASA on either of those, but the tragedies still occurred.
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